Re: [lojban] la za'e filjvocedra (The Age of Easy Lujvo)

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 2:05 PM, Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org> wrote:
>
> I think that there is a difference between mutce/milxe and zmadu/mleca

Of course there's a semantic difference, but are they structurally
different enough that they will use different paradigms for making
lujvo?

> I can say that x is bigger than y, without necessarily wishing to claim that
> x in big in an absolute sense.  The essence of the claim is the relative
> comparison.

You can only compare two things in the "ka broda" dimension if the two
things (or at the very least one of them) has some measure in that
dimension. If neither of the two has any "ka broda", then it doesn't
make sense to say that one of them has more of it than the other.

Now, Lojban doesn't really have a very proper word for "size", but
when we use "lo ka barda" for it we are assuming that the two things
compared have at least a minimum amount of it. No matter how small
they are, they still must have some "ka barda" in order to say that
one has more of it than the other.

> For mutce and milxe, the property being compared is the essential claim, and
> the mutce and milxe are adjectivally modifying that property (which is not
> normally the case with zmadu/mleca).

"Adjectivally modifying" does not apply to Lojban. If you are saying
that when you say "mutce barda" you are thinking of something other
that "mutce lo ka barda", then please explain in Lojban what it is
that you are thinking of, because I don't really understand the
distinction you want to make.

> traji seems like it could go either way, with the essence either being the
> extremeness, the main property being modified by an adjectival extremeness.
>  I tend to use the former, because the latter seems to me more of a "mutce
> traji" as the adjective modifying the basic property. But I am willing to
> concede that this may be colored by my English-based views of the words.

It seems as if you were saying that in "ko'a mutce lo ka broda" you
were somehow assigning brodaness to ko'a less essentially than in
"ko'a ckaji lo ka broda" or in "ko'a broda". Is that what you are
saying?

>  Especially since traji can be used for both extremes of a scale, it seems
> that any systematic usage should reflect that option, and not assume that it
> means "most"

Those who accept that strange definition of "traji" will be in trouble
whenever they want to use "traji", but so far I don't remember anyone
actually paying any attention to the x3 slot. Everyone seems to use it
with the sensible meaning of "x1 has more of property x2 than anyone
else among x4". But this issue doesn't really affect the question of
whether it's used as a prefix or as a suffix.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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